Near Tragedies and Realizations
by Dreamingsinger
Summary: Takes place during the time when the Doctor's time line matched up with that of a much younger River.  A serious accident leaves River seriously injured, and this in turn causes the past to become clearer and the future to become even more confusing.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer; I make no profit from this writing, which is simply intended as a work of fanfiction. The only payment I accept from this might be a few reviews and some constructive criticisms. The show it's characters all belong to the BBC.**

**A/N; It seems this evolved into another story that in part wrote itself. Certainly much longer in the end than I planned on, and only roughly following the basic plot I had planned on, but I decided that was okay. Actually it seemed logical to publish what I planned as a stand alone chapter as a two chapter story instead. Chapter two should be up in the next couple of days. Contains possible spoilers for season six, so be warned. **

The Doctor's heartbeats pounded in his chest with such force that he could hear the noise in his ears. He could feel his entire body trembling with shock and he was only vaguely aware of his mind becoming blank as any sense of logical reason rapidly left him.

Think, he ordered himself sharply. Senseless panic won't help anyone. With a much needed jolt back into reality, he carefully deposited River onto the bed he was standing in front of. She'd been completely limp in his arms and she was in just the same sort of state now. Calmly as he could force himself to stay, he visually assessed the obvious damage. Aside from being still soaking wet with muddy water, which was not a serious problem in itself, her body was just so broken and bloody that he knew he had a serious situation on his hands.

He began to move frantically around his small but efficient medical bay on board his ship. Basic protocols came to mind. He reviewed them quickly. Remain detached he reminded himself, for detachment was the only way he could hope to fix anything quickly.

For all his best and stubbornly furious attempts to force detachment into his mind though, he coudln't help but feel a sense of amazement and relief that even in her state of serious injury, she had been conscious enough at the time, to not try to breath while her head was underwater. She amazed him yet again. She so often did, but this time was different. He'd certainly never taught her to find her way to the top of a body of water by taking note of which way the bubbles moved. He'd never taught her the real importance of not panicking if she should ever find herself submerged, injured, and confused. He had never taught her because he'd never expected that such a thing would ever come up. Finding a traveling companion and friend in the cold, dark and dirty water at night, would have been a worst case scenario at any time. To add serious injury to it was not something he'd ever dared to think about.

He quickly walked back across the room when he heard her awaken with an audible groan. Her eyes were open immediately. Detachment, he reminded himself again, but he knew it would be so much harder to remain detached now. When someone was unconscious it was easy, but when they were awake it was always harder, if not impossible.

Her left hand had been crushed by falling bricks and crumbled masonry, but her right hand promptly clung to the sleave of his jacket as soon as he came over. She couldn't really move all that much, and she certainly couldn't sit or anything like that - she didn't even attempt to try - but she lay where she was, crying with pain and confusion and fright, trembling and holding the Doctor's sleeve and a near death grip. She could barely breathe to begin with and of course her panic and pain made that even worse.

"Doctor, what happened?" She pleaded for understanding, as he as gently as he could forced her to release him from her grip. He reached for a portable scanner and placed it on her arm. This didn't hurt her worse, but in her confusion it certainly did scare her. She cried harder, but he forced himself to hold onto his state of emotional detachment.

"The footbridge collapsed," he answered her question as simply as he could.

She looked at him with wide open eyes and forced herself to stop crying. Her next simple question was asked in a helpless mumble, half drowned by a new stream of tears. "Why?"

"It just did," the Doctor said simply. Perhaps a little too simply, he quickly realized. She was far from simple minded, and even in her state it would be impossible for her miss the fact that a bridge could not just fall without any reason for doing so.

"Things happen sometimes," he said, speaking now with far more concern and compassion in his voice. All ideas of emotional detachment were fast going right out the window, but he understood then that it was impossible anyway. How was he possibly supposed to remain so detached emotionally when trying to deal with some innocent person that was crying and terrified and confused. It seemed it was so much harder when that person was also the one person he'd come to know best of anyone in his long years of traveling.

River was only twenty as of the past summer, but already she was the one companion and friend that had traveled with him the longest. He'd told her so many of the things he would never have told any other living soul. He'd come to trust her with so many parts of his life that he'd never have entrusted to anyone else. She'd learned his language several years before; not all of it of course - to learn such a thing would take many years - but certainly enough that they could use it to talk to each other when their words needed to remain untranslated. She could still barely speak the language with any sort of success, but she could read and write. They so often wrote notes to each other that way. Countless intelligent races on countless worlds had faced the endless frustration of later finding those useless notes that had so obviously been their written plans of escape from some bind or another. She was smart and quick to learn, and willing to do anything and try again and again until she managed to do it.

He cared for her so much by then that he could not imagine what it would be like to lose her forever. He reminded himself with determination and a sad shuddering breath, that he knew already how it all ended. Then and there was most certainly not it. The thought however continued to invade his awareness, that time could be rewritten. He knew with not a hint of doubt that what he now feared most of all, was certainly the worst possible way he could think of to rewrite it.

The portable scanner, which was remotely wired to the main display monitor on the far wall of the room, sounded with a loud, high pitched, and very sudden series of beeps. Dreading what he knew he might find, he turned to the monitor and read everything with rapid speed and full comprehension. The scan results caused him to cry a little with relief, and he quickly wiped the tears from his eyes, before she saw and got a very wrong understanding of it all. There definitely seemed to be a lot of blood, and the scan had detected a couple of broken bones, but overall there was nothing serious enough to be all to concerned over. She was certainly nowhere near being fatally injured in the least.

The Doctor had so often heard the people of so many worlds describe injuries as looking so much worse than they turned out to be in the end. He understood now exactly what that meant. She was still crying and trembling so badly, but then he had to realize that she had so often been prone to crying easily. She may have been a young woman but still it was far from uncommon for her to cry as suddenly and with as much urgency and passion as a child would have done. Strange he thought then, to think that she was that way at all.

He remembered years before, the days of knowing her as she was to become, her future self. She had been, or would become, someone that he was hard pressed to imagine ever crying at all over anything. Yet here she was in her young days, during a time in which their time-lines finally matched each other's, so much weaker and far more innocent than that. Quickly he pulled himself away from his thoughts of past and future and the complexities of time and emotions, and focused intently on the task at hand.

He gently lifted her injured hand from where it lay lifeless at her side. She whimpered and moaned with pain as he carefully worked at cleaning the blood from her hand and fingers so that he could assess exactly how badly the bones were broken, yet her eyes remained fixed on him and full of trust. Even after her whimpering had turned to outright horrible sobbing and her vision was obscured by her tears of shock and pain and disbelief, she tried to hold her focus on his eyes.

"It's alright," he said, trying for all it was worth to hide the shaking of his voice. "Just try to stay calm. I need you to hold still, okay."

The situation was bad. That much was obvious. She may not have been hurt nearly as badly as it had seemed at first, but it was still bad enough to cause concern with good reason. The Doctor knew that while pain was not the only reason for her tears, in part she was crying and shaking from the chill that still lingered, from the shock and terror of landing in the icy water without warning, and even from the embarrassment of getting into such an accident in the first place. He remembered how she'd burst into sudden tears only a week before after finding that she'd left a tray of muffins to burn in the oven, after getting so busy reading that she had forgotten all about them . It had been a stressful several days in which nightmares had kept her awake, and she was by that time sleep deprived and at breaking point. Still though her tears had come so quickly as usual. It was obvious in any case that now, for all the other little reasons to be considered, pain was the most obvious factor. He brushed back a few more tears of his own when he realized he would have to hurt her much worse yet in order to ultimately help her.

"Hey," he said softly, his voice breaking through her scattered thoughts and her helplessness and pain. She dragged herself back to full consciousness, and realized only then that she had been so far gone from reality. The Doctor had stopped whatever it was he had been trying to do at first and now stood looking down at her, with one hand on her uninjured one rubbing it gently and obviously trying hard to get her to take notice of him. "Can you hear me? Come on, say something."

"...Hurts so much..." River managed to mumble an only half coherent response. Her tears had eased by then, and she lay sill and already so exhausted from her unexpected mishap, that she knew she would have little strength to resist at all whenever he decided to go on.

"I know," the Doctor said as quietly and calmly as he could. All hopes of detachment were completely gone by this time. He was fully emotionally involved in yet another situation that he'd tried to stay distant from. Of course he knew that he could neve have it any other way. Nor would he really and truly have wanted to. "I know, and I'm really sorry. It will all be so much better soon."

He put one hand under her head and slowly and carefully helped her to sit up a bit. She leaned against him unable to hold herself up at all, but she wasn't overly bothered by the change in position.

"You're going to go sleep for a while," he said, still holding her as tightly as he could without hurting her worse, making sure she couldn't fall over. "I have a lot of work to do in order to fix all this, and it would be much easier for you if you were right out for most of it."

Her eyes opened wide in fright and as the shock and realization of just how serious everything was, came over her. She just stayed perfectly still for several long seconds, staring at him helplessly. She couldn't even cry anymore. She only trembled and shook harder, and finally looked around a bit in wide eyed terror.

River was more than a little aware that the Doctor was looking at her with both concern and complete confusion over the horrible panic that was arising within her. But she couldn't bring herself to care too much about that right then. She only wanted the day to be over with. She only wanted to wake up and find that it had never happened at all. She'd faced strange, so often confusing nightmares for many years on end, that faded almost entirely from memory when she was startled awake. She closed her eyes tightly for a second and hoped that this was simply another one.

Finally, after several long seconds of just looking around in utter terror and shock, she knew she owed it to the Doctor to at least say something. With her voice shaking so badly that she barely recognized it herself, she whimpered, "no, please don't."

"What's the matter," the Doctor asked. His voice was completely serious and his great concern for her showed through so clearly. He'd gone through such things with her before, so many times in the last several years.

She'd been close to nine years old when he'd found her, more than old enough to have stored a wealth of early childhood memories and experiences within her head. But her entire childhood up to nearly that point had been a mystery. He knew only what he'd learned by piecing together as much as he could before he went off to find her in the first place, and she couldn't even tell him herself where she had come from. She'd so quickly begun to aquire life experiences that she could remember, but still the earlier years were for all intents and purposes nonexistent.

It was only in the last few years, that the sudden strange and often horrible flashes of long forgotten had begun to return. They were always in tiny pieces, but vivid and shocking. Something of other, some event, or a place, or even a series of words, spoken innocently enough would trigger such a recollection, and she would only stop dead in the middle of anything she'd been doing and stare blankly in confused horror, trying to understand.

"River, what happened?" the Doctor asked gently, trying patiently to help her to retrieve and come to understand a long forgotten memory, as he'd learned to over the years. Something had obviously set off her memory function again and he reasoned based simply on logic and timing that this time it had something to do with a fear of going to sleep.

She tried to take hold of his jacket sleeve again, but the positions of their bodies made that impossibly difficult to do. Her hand, the one that was completely unharmed, reached up then to grab firmly onto the front his clothing and of course he allowed it. She would so often hold tightly to either his hands or his clothes when long forgotten memories began to surface once again.

She thought intently as she could about her feelings of terror toward being forced into sleep. She didn't want to remember. She never wanted to remember such things, but it seemed she never did have much choice in the matter. Once triggered, however unintentionally, random bits of her forgotten early childhood years would continue to pour forward through her mind until it stopped on it's own accord once again. The Doctor had told her two years before, during a time they had talked honestly, shortly after a particularly bad memory flashback incident, that he had decided it was probably a good thing. He'd calmly explained to her that although it nearly always frightened her to the point of trembling and tears, they were her memories and she needed to recall them sometime or other. He felt that it would stop for good one day, and he told her that, but that confidant prediction never helped her much in the moment.

With one hand clinging to her friend for dear life, and still distressingly aware of her physical state of pain, River let the by now all too familiar feeling of slowly leaving her current reality begin to overwhelm her. No point in struggling against it. She'd come to understand that early on. Still though the need to try to anyway, nevertheless came up. An image came to mind and she gasped with shock as that same image become more and more real until she was herself back in that long ago but still vague second in time.

She was a small child, still so tiny that the door across the room looked so much bigger than her mind now told her it should have looked. She was laying motionless on a cold surface in a very white and far too bright room, looking in terror the bight lights that hung suspended from the ceiling high above. The mind of her child-self didn't like the place at all. She yelled for a mother she knew must be out there somewhere in a world she had never seen. There was someone behind her. She could feel their eyes staring her but she couldn't see anything but a brightness that made her eyes hurt. More images came forward in quick succession and she could barely make sense of any of it. She was held roughly by someone that was both obviously not at all human and not the least bit compassionate. Rough and brutal hands on the front of her small head, forcing her shriek of agonized horror. Blankness, a feeling of spinning and more blackness. In her memories she awoke in screaming pain and the feeling carried over so perfectly into her current reality. Both were just as real, past and present. That much she understood with a passing thought. The flashback had been triggered as much by the pain as by the mention going to sleep.

Snapping fully back into real-time consciousness, she found herself looking up into the Doctor's now horrified eyes. His ability to multi-task under the worst kind of circumstance came to light as she became aware that he was carefully cleaning blood off her face with a soft wet cloth while still holding her tightly against him and staring at her in understanding. It was only then that she knew much to her embarrassment that she'd been mumbling her experiences out loud again. At least half the time she did end up speaking aloud in real time, telling him everything as she saw it. During these times he'd simply hold her and stand by quietly waiting and comprehending and gaining a new bit of understanding himself so that he could later help her to understand it all. Other times though she would remain nearly silent, and it was after those incidents that he would always leave her to tell him more about it when and if she ever wanted to.

Eventually she would always tell him everything and of course she felt less alone then. But she'd come to hate the times she'd find herself speaking to him out loud as she saw everything unfolding in almost real-time. She always felt like she was dragging him right into it with her and though he'd told her it didn't bother him, still she didn't like to.

"I'd never hurt you like that," the Doctor said, new understanding giving a whole new level of compassion to his words. "You know that, right?"

"I...I know," River said, her voice quiet and still trembling badly, She maintained her hold on the front of his jacket as a simple attempt to move a little and sit up a bit more caused her lower leg, which she hadn't even known was injured, to send waves of pain throughout her body.

"Doctor, please help me," she mumbled in misery and fright. For the first time, she noticed the blood that covered her left arm and hand, and the bedding it was resting on. She payed closer attention and took notice of the blood that covered both knees and one foot.

"I'm trying to help you," the Doctor said. Whether he was relieved or completely filled with dread over her having gained a greater level of consciousness and reason, he was still not certain of at all himself. "I'll make this as easy for you as I can, but you have to sleep now."

Finally, tired of the struggle and the fear and the pain, River managed to give a slight nod of her head, before she started crying again. The Doctor held a small cup of some kind of blue substance to her mouth and she willingly drank it's contents after a second's hesitation and a moment of threatening panic. He gently moved her again so she was once again laying down and when she reached up with her eyes half closed, searching for a hand to hold, he took hers and held it tightly.

"It's alright," he said quietly, trying his hardest to keep the frightened young lady from panicking. "You just go off to sleep now. I'd never hurt you, but of course you must already know that. Yeah, that's right, keep your eyes closed now."

She very quickly became perfectly silent and unmoving. Her eyes were closed and she was completely asleep within only minutes, as the fast acting sedatives took full effect. The Doctor gently wiped away the tears that had nearly but not quite fallen from her eyes. He pulled himself together fast, before his own fell too, and spent a very brief moment leaning against the edge of the bed forcing his way back into his needed state of detachment. This was much simpler of course, with her asleep and not crying in pain. He backed up a couple of steps before he turned and quickly began to gather more needed supplies from a cupboard nearby.

He found himself alone with his own thoughts while he worked efficiently and as quickly as he could. He thought back to the amount of crying that River had done since she had awakened in the medbay only an hour before. She was always so prone to crying, and he knew that. It didn't bother him really. It was more or less just a case of her being her. It seemed though that at that time she had cried ever harder than she normally did over anything else. He went back to a line of thought that had gone through his head earlier on He remembered meeting River's future self several times many years before that day. The memories of her from that time should have quite logically told him that she would be alright now, and to a great extent they did tell him just that. But the River Song he had met years ago, the one of a time he had not yet lived at all was so very different from the one he had now, the one who existed in a time that matched up to his own. This one, still early into adulthood, loved to laugh at silly things and she so often grinned with joy at simple things like watching wild animals in trees. When she started laughing at much of anything, she could not easily stop herself, and much the same thing applied to crying. She knew so much of time and space, yet still like anyone at her age had so much difficulty in seeing life in a realistic way when it came to imaging her own future. Today was meant to be lived, and tomorrow was just some obscure concept that she could barely see the relevance of when it came to herself.

On the other hand though the one he had known first, due to the impossible complexities of time travel, was so much stronger and so in control of herself all the time. She knew exactly what it was she wanted, and would never have listened or doubted a thing had anyone questioned her. She thought everything over so carefully, and though she was certainly impulsive, she was never truly careless about anything. He reminded himself that that one was older and far more experienced at life in general, but still he knew it was more than that. At some point yet to happen, she had grown into someone perhaps a little too confidant, a little too strong. He had come to know her in those times just well enough to see, in hindsight that her emotional shields were built up so high and so powerfully that she must have built them up to much for fear of breaking entirely.

His young River practiced so often with weapons of so many types and from so many different eras in time. It seemed so strange a thing for an innocent and emotional girl like herself to be interested in, but somehow the use of firearms was fast becoming one of her most obvious talents. There was a serious difference however between harmless target practice on firing ranges and cold blooded killing. The young lady he knew so well would never have thought of pointing anything short of a perfectly harmless, electronic visual training gun at someone. But her future self, as he had come to see more than once, though little of shooting an enemy dead if she had to. It seemed for her, that it might have even been at times simply a means to an end.

The Doctor continued to work as quickly as he could, determined to finish completely and put her comfortably into her own bed in her room before she begun to awaken again. Her right leg was cut so badly in several places. It had been scraped against razor sharp rock-bed she must have somehow crashed against in the water. He found himself wiping away tiny fragments of the fragile rock that it seemed must have begun to shatter into bits from her impact with it under the water. Had she been awake he knew he would have caused her a horrible amount of terrible pain, and though he had to admit to having questioned himself at first about fully knocking her right out, now he was glad as ever that he had decided to do so. His instinct was to worry and protect her from anything he possibly could. For a moment he worried that even without much, if any, awareness of much of anything, she might still be in pain. Unable to shake the concern, he looked at the monitor's view screen again, but saw with relief that the monitor was not picking up any sign of distress at all. She was only sleeping very soundly.

Perhaps River's emotional sensitivity was rubbing off on him it seemed, because no sooner had be felt the relief of finding that she was still okay than he burst into a fit of tears so bad that for a moment he could only lean forward over the bed railing, which he'd earlier put up a bit in fear for her safety, and cry without even truly knowing why.

There had been a time, not all so long ago given the length of time that Time Lords could live, that he knew he would have never been able to imagine her as anything but the far to strong and much too blunt and confidant person he had once known. He could certainly never have dreamed of seeing her as a crying and shaking girl holding tightly to the front of his jacket and begging him to protect her from her own mind and her own pain. He would never have believed she could ever have asked innocently why there had to be wars and hunger, or why people had to die, or why children had to suffer for the actions of their parents, and just assume he might actually have the answers to such impossible to explain things.

He could never have imagined her that way at all, and he knew that even if he had tried to picture it, he'd have thought he certainly wouldn't be very fond of her that way all. Strangely and most surprisingly though he had come to like her so much as she was. He cried harder, trying to make his best guess at what exactly, aside from simply growing older and changing as all people tended to do over the years, it might have been that had forced her to become the person he knew she was to later become.

Lost in a million thoughts and trying so hard to keep his concentration on the very important task of caring for his companion, the Doctor worked quickly for the next couple of hours. She slept soundly that whole time and the monitor showed that she remained perfectly stable. It was only after he'd found a warm blanket to wrap around her and very carefully lifted her into his arms to carry her back to her own bedroom, that she showed signs of awakening.

"Doctor... what're ya... doin'" she mumbled sleepily and with only just enough coherence that he could barely make out what she was saying. She didn't even open her eyes for a second. She mumbled some half senseless nonsense about cold water and how silence would fall, but still her eyes were closed and her body limp and relaxed. It stood to reason that she likely couldn't feel anything at all, let alone remember much of the past hours. He hurried through the hallways, pulled open her door and very carefully lay her down on her bed.

"You go back to sleep for a while," he said quietly and with a slight but affectionate laugh over her mumbling at him. River was, as could be expected, right back to sleep again within only a few short seconds and the Doctor knew that it would be several hours before she would be able to really be able to hold onto any real wakefulness.

He looked curiously around her room, searching for something to give her to hug if she should wake up again. He simply thought that she might like to hold something soft, but much to his dismay the few odd stuffed animals that had for so long sat nearby on top of a shelf of books, had been packed away somewhere. Her room, he noticed for the first time, really did seem to contain far more in th e way of personally belongings and day to day clutter than that of any other companion he had ever known. She had been with him long enough to accumulate so much. He room still looked so much like a teenager's room, and noticing that fact he remembered that she had asked him several times in the past months alone if he could please reprogram it to something less childish. Noticing the absence of the stuffed toys and several other items he noticed gone as he looked around once more, he promised himself he would do just that when she was better again.

He backed out of the room quickly, off in a rush to go and gather things she might like once she woke up. As he worked at searching his ship for supplies, he reviewed ideas in his mind of what River's new room might look like. He didn't want to do it in a way, for he knew that deleting her still somewhat childlike room of the last seven years would somehow signal the end of her childhood and the start of what could only be something far more complicated. Yet all the same he could only think of making her as happy as he could.

**More notes; Yes, it certainly does seem that River cries a lot in this one and gets scared so easily, and of course I know that's very far from her character as we know it. But she was so much younger here as well this is actually how I imagine she might once have been. Obviously her mind is a little bit unstable here to, and again I can see that as happening. Sort of some of the after effects of years of possible exposure to the Silents. Anyways, all that said... constructive criticism and reviews are as always most welcome and helpful.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N; This took longer than I thought it would at first to publish. I decided to rewrite the whole second chapter. I;m very sorry to anyone who might have been waiting, for making them wait. Anyway I'm all done fussing with it now and so up it goes!**

River was laying on her bed, with her blue and green blanket pulled up somewhat carelessly over her body. Her eyes were open and she stared at the far wall of her bedroom just thinking her own complicated thoughts in silence. There were times she found, that she simply liked to take time to think of everything and nothing. Unfortunately now that she was forced to do only that, she found that she did not like it nearly as much.

Her bedroom was much cooler than she had ever noticed before, and she shivered slightly from the chill. Slowly and with some hesitation she moved to pull her blanket tighter around her. Her left hand and her lower arm though were held completely immobile in a rigid plastic brace, making it virtually useless to her at theat point, and a horribly sore and aching right side stopped her from lifting her right arm too high. For a moment she lay still, fighting to overcome a surprising amount of pain that her simple attempt at such a small motion had caused her. Slowly she took notice of her body, and realized for the first time in full consciousness just how bad of a state she was in. Her ribs ached on one side of her body, her back hurt badly, both legs were stinging and burning with pain.

She was struggling again to pull up her covers with only one good hand and limited range of motion, when the Doctor came into the room, with a plastic storage box in his hands. He promptly set it down on her nightstand. She laughed a little as he jumped lightly onto her bed and sat down carefully on the edge of it.

"Glad to see you're finally awake," he said softly, smiling at her. "I came to check on you many times in the past hours but I always found you still sleeping soundly. How you feeling?"

"A bit chilly," River answered. "Mostly I'm just a little bored."

"You should have called for me. Yeah, next time, do that. So boredom... what a sad idea that is. Who invented such a thing as boredom anyway." The Doctor's response made her laugh a little again. Clearly that's exactly what he had intended on and hoped for.

River smiled, happy just to have some company again. "So... what's in the box?"

The Doctor began to unpack the box's contents one by one and quickly, onto the nightstand within her reach. "Water bottle, reading material, Galifreyan fairy tales. I found this one in the library and thought you might be interested in it from a cultural standpoint. More reading material for you. Some silly Earth romance novels. The text communicator. You might need to call me. Paper, pen, pencil, your mp3 player. I found this on the kitchen table. Thought you might want it."

"Thank you."

"Is there anything else you need?"

"No. At least I don't think so."

"Okay"

"How long was I asleep for?"

"Oh at least seven hours," the Doctor explained, as he rummaged through the packing create again and pulled out various supplies that were obviously brought with him from the medbay. "Well, you did wake up a bit once while we were on the way to your room here, but you were barely awake at all. Do you even remember that?"

"No,"

"That's alright. I didn't think you would."

The Doctor, looking most apologetic all the while, took the covers off of her. She looked at him nervously but still so inclined to trust. He gently began to remove the bandages that were wrapped securely around her right lower leg. When she began to shiver slightly from the coolness of the room, he stopped immediately and wrapped her blanket around her trying to keep her as comfortable and warm as he could. She just lay still and quiet as he went back to his original task. She trusted him as much as she always had, and he found himself now, more glad and grateful than ever for that sense of trust.

"Well your leg isn't broken or anything like that fortunately," he said, explaining things as he worked. "Not even close to being broken, but it was cut pretty badly in several places. You did manage to sprain your ankle though, but it's only a sprain. Should get better quickly."

Using a clean cloth and a basin of water he had filled in her bathroom sink, the Doctor began to gently clean her deep cuts again. For only a minute or less River lay still and simply let him do so without reaction or complaint. Then she tried to sit up a bit and very unsuccessfully move again.

"No no, don't move," the Doctor said gently. "I know I'm hurting you again, and I'm sorry. I'm going to try to do this as quickly as I can. Maybe... try closing your eyes for a little while."

River didn't see any reason why her eyes being either open or closed should possibly make any difference at all, but more than anyone in the world she trusted him, so she simply followed his instruction without comment.

"I suppose we will need more travel plans in mind soon enough, hey," he said to her. "Can't always just wait around for this old ship to take us to wherever we need to be. Where would you like to go? Someplace we've never gone yet."

"Hmm..." River mumbled, somewhat miserably and uncertain at first. After only a second though an answer came to mind and she said with excitement. "The Mayan empire. I've been reading about their society and it sounds so fascinating. So different from many of the more advanced Earth civilizations throughout history. They did things in their own way with so little or no outside influence before the Europeans found them. Of course you have a time machine though. So why settle for just reading books, when we can meet the real people."

The Doctor considered silently for a minute, but quickly caught himself. If his trick of using distraction was to continue to work, he knew he needed to answer quickly. Responding as fast as he could he said seriously, "sounds a bit too dangerous."

River laughed a bit. "Yeah," she said calmly. "While they were certainly intelligent and high advanced scientifically for their time, I suppose they really might have been a bit too violent. Okay bad idea."

"Not a bad idea at all. Of course we will go someday, but not for a while yet."

"Okay, how about the last world's fair then?"

"Much better plan. Nice and safe. What could possibly go wrong there."

"Doctor, this is us. We can try for all it's worth to plan on a simple outing without all the running, but that so often never seems to happen."

"Hey, we've had a few of those kind of days. That hiking trip up in the mountains last year, or the marketplace on... hmmm I can't recall the name of that planet now right off hand. But we do seem to have about one in ten safe kind of days." The Doctor laughed a little as he continued on, this time in a far more doubtful voice. "Actually that is a pretty low number isn't it... okay, fair point you have."

As promised he was finished as quickly as possible. After a couple of minutes of neither saying anything at all, he came closer to her again and moved her gently so that he could sit behind her with her head resting on his knees. She opened her eyes again. There had been so many times that they had sat or lay on each others beds simply talking to one another, that by now such a thing was not at all odd or unforseen. He sat still, his arms resting over her shoulders lightly, hoping it would calm her as much as possible.

"In a little while, later tonight I think, I might try to get you to sit up in a chair for a short time," he said slowly and thoughtfully.

River only looked at him, obviously doubtful. She trusted him though enough to simply listen once again without comment. And she did see, once she thought about it for a moment, that he had a very valid and logical point. Horrible as it might seem to try to be up so soon, it would only really be after many hours and a good rest. Being out of bed was of course important.

"Why do I have a feeling I'm going to feel so useless in the next while," she half mused and half pouted.

"I'm sure we'll find something helpful and worthwhile for you to do," the Doctor answered with confidence. He knew her far too well to think that she could ever be happy enough just doing nothing at all instead of helping him in some way or other. "I have some studies to carry out on some plants I found on that planet we visited last week. If you like, tomorrow you can help me catalogue them all. It's easy enough to do. Just basically sitting and speaking into a recording device."

"Doctor, why did the bridge collapse? I know you said that sometimes things just happen, but I know that bridges don't just fall for no reason."

"You can remember me saying all that?"

"Yes of course I can. Why wouldn't I remember that?"

"You just seemed a bit out of it then. Nothing wrong with remembering of course, but I didn't think you really knew much of what was happening."

"What happened to the bridge?" River asked again, more determined than ever to understand a situation much bigger then she had so far been informed of.

"The bridge was blown up," the Doctor admitted slowly. He choose his words carefully and paused to gage her reaction, determined not to frighten her at all at a time when she needed more than ever to stay calm. She so far seemed fine though. she just looked up at him waiting for him to go on speaking. He went on, just as slowly. "Well not exactly the bridge itself. The supporting structures on either end and in the middle just sort of blow at the same time and with a couple of loud bangs, before the whole thing just fell into the water. The roof of course fell right on top of the bridge deck."

River looked at him silently for a moment trying to gather her thoughts toward this new understanding. Eventually she said calmly, more or less analyzing the situation than anything else, "But the Dreamland Crossing footbridge is one of Zaphera Four's famous landmarks. All fourteen of that world's great landmarks are so valued among it's people. And surely those who live on other worlds know to respect the traditions of a society that has never harmed anyone at all, and simply wants to take care of several brick and stone structures."

"Sadly this was the action of a group of people that would not have had any consideration toward such things," the Doctor admitted slowly. He looked down at the floor miserably. "I know the people responsible, or rather, I know of them. There are somewhat infamous in this region of space in this time zone. On Earth the word we may well use to describe a small group that does the things they do would be terrorists. Like everything we normally associate with acts of terrorism, this was also a very deliberate and carefully timed event."

River's eyed widened in shock as she comprehended his words. "So... someone might have actually wanted to kill me?"

"No," the Doctor answered quickly, trying to dismiss such panic ridden fears from her mind at once. He wanted to drop the matter right then and there, perhaps distract her with something else to think about, and forget that the subject had ever come up at all. But he knew her too well to think that that might work. He regretted having started the whole discussion at all, but then really he had to accept that it had not really been him that had started it. He mentally shouted at himself that he should have just lied when she asked again how the bridge collapsed, maybe told her that wear and tear and high winds had made it fall. But then he reminded himself that she was not nearly narrow minded enough to think that a stable stone bridge could fall that way, when there was not even any wind that night at all. Anyway, he knew he couldn't lie to her. He'd never been able to do that, without her somehow knowing he was lying.

"They did the best they could," he explained his voice sounding a lot calmer than he really was. He carefully wrapped both of his arms around her and held her as tightly as he safely could without hurting her. He felt so suddenly, and of course quite unrealistically, that if only he could hold onto her tightly enough he might just stop her from even leaving one day, that that perhaps that would in turn stop whatever coming event it was that obviously had yet to send them spinning through time in very opposite directions, so that they could never truly know each other again. He imagined that just maybe he could hold her tightly enough that she would never lose that innocence of young adulthood that she still held something of right then. He knew though that of course that could never happen, and she was only looking at him for that moment like he had gone mad. She wiggled a bit to loosen his hold and he knew that all he could never change the course of time that way. He was simply making her give him questioning and confused looks.

He released his hold a little and went on speaking. "They did their best to do some real damage, but for all their bad reputation, they are still thankfully pretty amature at such things. there were too many variables and some they didn't seem to count on or account for at all. They had no way of knowing I'd get distracted by anything on path leading to the bridge. They didn't you you'd be ahead of me and keep on running forward. I don't think they even knew there was anyone with me out there at all. I'm just thankful that they made the mistake of miscalculating the difficultly in completely blowing up so much of such heavy materials as stone and steel. It could have been much worse. Had they known how to cause such an explosion effectively, you wouldn't still be here."

Her eyes had been slowly closing again as she grew tired and let her trust in him keep her safe. Now they flew open again suddenly. She blinked silently several times in shocked disbelief, and without any warning at all, she burst into uncontrolled tears again. "Someone meant to kill you then? How could they... You've only ever helped so many people, so many entire societies. Don't they know of all the good you've ever done?"

"More then enough good to make enemies of anyone that's ever wished harm upon anyone that's ever been helped in the first place," the Doctor reasoned, quite logically.

If River had understood his words and his logic, which surely she did, for she was a smart and logical one herself, she made no clear indication of understanding at all. She just went on crying, her head turned a bit to one side and her tears forming a wet spot on his pant-leg. Her body trembled with her sobs of heartbreak over the thought of him nearly hurt or dead. He knew there was no way he could make her stop. She'd stop on her own, likely only after she'd exhausted herself and fallen asleep.

"There will always be someone in the universe that wants me dead, " the Doctor said with understanding, trying so hard to calm her again. He laughed a little as he said "Hey, it's a big universe and I know a lot of people."

His companion however only continued to stare at him with tear filled eyes. She sniffed and tried to stop crying. She said quietly, "just, please don't let anything bad happen to you. I know you would never stop running through all of time and space even if I asked you too, but please be careful and don't end up dead."

He could only promise to be careful. He had so often thought that he already was, but on the other hand one quick mental review of years of running head first into danger with no plan in sight, told him that perhaps she had a point. He admitted that maybe she was right after all, which actually made her laugh a bit. She mumbled something about how he so rarely admitted to having been wrong, and finally her tears stopped entirely.

"How are you feeling now?" the Doctor asked after a silent minute or two. He was concerned, quite logically, that her latest crying spell had to do with more than just the thought of possible disaster, and loss.

"I'm okay I think. Quite a bit of pain but I suppose that's not surprising."

"Is it very horrible?"

"Yes," River admitted slowly. She very quickly opened her eyes wider though and continued on speaking, trying to make her behavior completely understood. "But that's not what I'm so shaken up over. I just can't imagine you ever dying. To think that there might really be someone out there who would ever want to destroy such a perfect and wonderful person is something I could never face."

"I'm hardly perfect and I'm so often far from wonderful... I've done so many horrible things ... So much of that is unforgivable and almost unspeakable."

"I know that," River insisted boldly. "I mean, I know you've done bad before. Haven't we all. And nothing is ever unforgivable. I don't know all that you've ever done and I know you many never tell me most of it, but still I forgive you anyway."

The Doctor held out a small white pill, and made it obvious by that action that he intended for her to take it. He would listen to her of course and hear whatever it might possibly be that she had to say, but all the same he forced himself to remain on top of things and keep on top of her pain medication. He knew that she would not be truly comfortable for at least a few days, but he was determined to do the best he could. She compliantly swallowed the pill with some water from the bottle that he handed to her, but she very soon settled back into her laying position, with her head on his knees.

So many times during the years that she'd traveled with him, she had sat or lay leaning against him in some way, but typically when she was upset of afraid. He observed at that moment though for the first time that she was doing so now for a much different reason. She had nothing to be directly frightened by at that exact moment, and she was well over her recent upset. She was simply doing that because she wanted to for no real reason at all. Slowly but with a far greater boldness then she'd ever really shown before she went on speaking. "To have to understand that you are no longer a part of my life, and never will be again would be an upset so great I'm not sure I'd ever really be okay again. You say so often that you've done so many terrible things, and I believe it of course. But there are so many wonderful things too. Far more wonderful things than there could ever be terrible deeds. Doctor, it's all those countless wonderful things I've come to love..."

"River, you can't possibly mean to say..." the Doctor stumbled over his words, nearly at a loss for a reaction. "Love is a very powerful and strong word. Surely you don't mean to say you actually love me."

Although she was so obviously in pain, she smiled brightly at him and even managed to laugh a little at his shocked verbal stumbling. "Yes."

"But you can't," the Doctor protested somewhat helplessly. "You are so young. Still barely more than a child. You can't possibly understand what love is."

"Of course I can. And I'm far more than a child."

"You've been through so much in just a few hours. Pain and medication and of course a good fright, can do funny things to the mind..."

River laughed a little and smiled at him again. Slowly and seriously she said, "It's not like that at all. Doctor I know exactly what I'm saying." The Doctor knew, without further pushing his argument, that once again she really did mean exactly what she said.

"Oh, this is very much not a good idea," he muttered far more to himself than to her. He doubted very much that she even heard him. She was already carefully thinking over the words she might say next. Instead of speaking though, she closed her eyes and looked like she might simply fall asleep. She was of course in a very weakened state due to her very recent injuries, and the pain medication didn't do that situation any favors in the least.

The Doctor sat for a long moment, lacking any heart to move her and get up, though he knew that he should do so. He tried to think over the latest little situation he'd clearly found himself in and found much to his dismay that he could barely think straight at all. He'd had so many companions over the years who thought they loved him. He'd simply direct their affections back to the places they rightfully belonged, and overall things always worked out as they were supposed to. But he knew full well that with River it was different. She truly meant it. He could tell that much from her actions and words alone.

He remembered her future self all too well when he allowed himself to think of her from time to time. It was so perfectly obvious that she must have first come to love him at some point in her life. Still though even armed with the knowledge of what might inevitably happen one day, he had never expected such a thing so soon. And River was currently still so young and inexperienced at living a life of her own at all.

For a moment he thought that perhaps he should send her away for a while. She would be furious with him at first of course, but slowly he reasoned, she might make new connections and find the one she was meant to love... someone that was certainly not him. He couldn't do that though and with only a quick thought he know that. She really had nowhere to go, and for all intents and purposes at that time, no family to take her in. He would not have even had a clue what point in time to leave her in. Anyway, he didn't really want to leave her behind anywhere at all. He knew that would nearly destroy both of them.

It was clear, when he finally forced himself to stop his frantic thoughts and admit to something so simple, that he was only trying without hope of success, to run form the future he'd already caught glimpses off years before. He may have had a few objections in the current moment of course, but how could he run from things he had already seen so clearly spelled out for him in a time of his past and her future. The Doctor knew that of all people, he should and did know that it just wasn't meant to work like that. He couldn't change that future and he wasn't sure he really and truly wanted to.

He looked at his nearly sleeping young companion, laying still and as comfortable as was possible in her current state of health. Very slowly and careful he moved to get up from her bed. For a second her hand tried to grab a hold of his jacket sleeve again and she mumbled a bit without saying anything coherent. Quickly she settled again into stillness and lightly slept. The Doctor watched her for a moment before turning away to tidy up her room a bit. He knew he had managed to save her this time and for that he was more grateful than ever. It would take a while, but she would be perfectly fine.

The Doctor shook his head slightly to shake off the memories of freezing water, and his companion screaming for help as an increasing amount of blood became visible and obvious nearby. It had been only by a stroke of luck that he had managed to pull her quickly but gently from the water, as wreckage continued to fall overhead. Quick thinking as always, had likely been the only thing that really allowed him to act quickly enough. Of course a crowd of terrified natives had began to gather at the edge of what had once been the famous walking bridge over the small lake. Some had screamed at him, angry, and in their confusion blaming him for the whole disaster. Many though had simply taken notice of the battered, bloody, soaking wet and shaking companion he carefully carried in his arms, and looked at them both with compassion.

A few had tried to take her from him, clearly only intending to help, but he had held her tighter and stood feeling more helpless than he could recall feeling in such a long time. He was far more protective of her than he had even been of any other companion he had taken along with him, and of course he so often thought he had been protective of all of them. Needless to say he had refused, quite beyond logical reason to hand her off to anyone. As he looked down at his sleeping young friend now, he only vaguely remembered trying to calmly explain to the group of well intentioned natives that he knew he could help her best himself because he understood best how to.

It wasn't entirely a case of mistrusting the people of the somewhat less advanced world, or of doubting their knowledge of health and healing practices. He recalled in fact, that he had so seriously considered the benefits of allowing for help. But at the same time, he knew that if she woke up, she would be completely terrified even under the best of circumstances. He had only held onto her much tighter as he kept walking quickly, unable to even try to face the thought of entrusting her care to anyone else at all. Her protected so much still, he reflected somewhat in a state of wonder. But he knew it could not possibly be long now before it would seem it was her that was so often trying so hard to protect him.

He didn't leave her room all too quickly this time. Instead he sat in the blue armchair that his companion so often liked to curl up in to read, and waited patiently for her to wake up again. She was only sleeping, not gone from his life at all, and yet already he knew he missed her company. He sat for a while, before getting up again and getting to work reorganizing her book shelves. He wondered for a moment why he should want to do that when they were already tidy, she could obviously do a good job of arranging her own room, and he was going to reprogram the room soon anyway and that would mean moving out all the things that would be put back inside. After considering those things though, he simply shook his head in slight confusion and went back to rearranging her books anyway.

River woke up after a couple of hours, and sleepily questioned him on his motives for cleaning her room. He was now in the middle of rearranging the closet. He turned back to look at her with a cheerful laugh, and stood up quickly.

"Just thought I might do a little straightening up." The Doctor hurried over to her. "Feeling better after a bit more rest?"

"Yeah I do."

He helped her to sit herself up a bit in her bed, leaning on a few extra pillows he had dragged out of a storage closet earlier. For a little while the two of them just chatted about little things of no real importance at all. Her offered her some toast and a glass of juice, which he had quickly fetched from the kitchen not long before either, and she gratefully accepted it, surprised that she was actually hungry.

"Doctor," she said a short time after, "Do you think I could get up for a little while?"

"I think you could," he answered slowly. He was of course both pleased and surprised that she was willingly asking to do that without him having to convince her to try. "How do you feel though sitting up like that? Not dizzy or anything?"

"No."

The Doctor very slowly and carefully helped his companion sit on the edge of her bed with her feet resting lightly on the floor. Sitting up completely with nothing behind her to lean against tired her out a lot and made her feel lightheaded, but she was nevertheless determined to keep trying. When he gently held her by the arms she very slowly stood up on her feet. She could barely put any weight on one leg at all, her good hand held one of his arms tightly for balance, and standing up of course caused her pain level to increase a fair amount. It was for worse than she might have imagined, and she was still in a weaker state than she had thought, but considering the many dangers she had faced in years of traveling with the Doctor, the slight possibility of falling into a carpeted floor seemed small and insignificant. Anyway, she knew he would never let her fall.

The normally simple act of getting up from her bed and moving to sit in her nearby armchair suddenly seemed like a great accomplishment. She knew immediately though that the Doctor was right in his thinking once again. Somehow, sitting in the chair she so often used for reading or contemplating, made her feel a bit better than just laying in her bed. The realization as early as the next day she may well be able to sit for longer and actually do something useful, made her happy.

"Doctor," she said suddenly, thinking more and more coherently all the time, thinking of a bigger picture than ether had paid much attention too since her accident. "What will happen to the people of Zaphera Four now?"

The Doctor looked at her from where he sat on her bed. "What do you mean?"

"Well they were the other innocent victims in all this. Is there anyone who will help them rebuild the bridge at Dreamland crossing?"

"Oh they will do that themselves. That's what the do. They maintain landmarks. Oh course this does go beyond simple maintainese..."

"Can we go and help them one day soon? I imagine in a couple of months at most I'll be completely better. And your ship can travel through time."

"Of course we can go and help if you want to, but are you sure you really want to go back there after all that's happened?"

"Why not? Doctor, the least we could do is help some innocent people in need of some assistance. Anyway, knowing them as I do, I'm sure they must have been concerned for us."

The Doctor only nodded his head slowly. River was showing her true strength of character in that moment, and just to hear her do so at such a time made him proud of her once again. She could have wanted to run away so fast, and he have so willingly let her. He knew that in the years to come there would be so many times she would beg him to please run away from certain situations himself.

"River?" he said quietly, looking at her and half dreading any response she might give from that point on. She only looked at him, and waited for him to go on speaking. With a certain amount of forced nerve, he asked her, "did you really mean what you said before? Not about helping those natives. Before you went back to sleep you said..."

"Of course I meant it. Doctor, you've always accepted me no matter what I did or thought or felt. I'm weak and I know that..."

"River you aren't weak at all." the Doctor protested, but his companion only silenced him with a quick motion of her hand.

"I am though. I know that so many others have travels with you over the years. You've told me stories or so many of them, remember? I know I'm nothing like they all were, Those brave and mouthy people could do so much. They were as much a force of power as you are yourself at times. But me... I never could do anything they did. Too shaky... too nervous and unsure. You might have been right when you said I;m still little more than a child. I'm so far behind in learning self control."

"Whatever it was that you faced in childhood, your mind is still recovering from," the Doctor explained calmly. "The recurring flashbacks tell us that. It's only to be expected that in some ways you might still be a little bit behind."

"I know, I know... but..."

"You won't always be this way." The Doctor looked at his friend for a moment saying nothing more. River, the one he knew first, the older version, had always been far better at keeping his so far unlived life secret from him, far better than he ever was at keeping hers secret from her. In the current moment, looking at her and seeing her so clearly distressed and openly frustrated, he wanted so much to tell her all about her future self. He wanted to explain that it was for a fact that he knew she would be so much strong than she could ever imagine, and so much braver and smarter and adventurous than anyone else he knew. He wished he could tell her that she would one day make a Dalek beg for mercy with only an energy weapon and the mention of her own name, or that she jump out of an open airlock right into space, wait for him to catch her, and in the end find the whole thing simply amusing. But he knew he could never tell her any of that. She would have to live it for herself when the time came. There was a reason that her future self had always kept life's biggest 'spoilers' unexplained.

"The point is that you've always just accepted the way I am. It's never been questioned or put down or made me less that what you always called a wonderful person. How could I not love someone for such unconditional acceptance among so many other things?" River yawned as soon as she finished speaking. For a second she closed her eyes, before she caught herself and opened them again, to look at the Doctor sleepily.

She was exhausted from the effort of simply sitting up for roughly twenty minutes. He could see that much just by looking at her. Very slowly and carefully he helped her back into her bed. She didn't offer any protest at all. She simply walked the few steps, let herself fall somewhat gratefully into her bed, and lay still and quiet while he covered her up in her blue and green blanket.


End file.
